In conversation with Azzurra Meringolo, the head of the "Bahrain Center for Human Rights" Maryam al-Khawaja reports on the repression of activists within the Bahrain democracy movement and how the regime is trying to portray the protests as a conflict between ethnic or confessional groups.

BANGKOK, 16 November 2012 (IRIN) - Five months after communal violence erupted in Myanmar's Rakhine State, the plight of the 800,000 Muslim Rohingya there has worsened: Renewed violence in late October left more than 100,000 displaced, according to the government.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), welcomes the vindication of two women humanrights defenders in The Gambia following two years of judicial harassment.

The Government of Sudan must immediately investigate the arbitrary detention and torture of freelance Sudanese journalist Somia Ismail Ibrahim Hendusa, who was found abandoned and in extremely poor health on a Khartoum street on 2 November following her arrest by Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) officers on 29 October.

On 1 November 2012, human rights defender Ms Aminatou Haidar was physically and verbally attacked and threatened with a knife by Moroccan police in El Ayoun in a four hour long assault that left her car damaged. Aminatou Haidar is a renowned human rights defender and the Chairperson of the Collectif des Défenseurs Sahraouis des Droits de l'Homme – CODESA(Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders). Her human rights work focuses on advocating for the rights of the Sahrawi people and the independence of the Western Sahara.